This invention relates to voting machines primarily for use in less developed countries where voting machines must be rugged, simple and reliable, able to continue their function under adverse circumstances, yet preserving secrecy of balloting and security of the vote essential to proper functioning of the electoral system. Prior art voting machines are in general too complicated and expensive for use in such service. Moreover, it is also important that a voting machine be provided which does not require electrical power to operate and one which is sufficiently durable to be substantially tamper-proof so as to prevent ballots to be recorded at a first location and the entire machine bodily carried back to a central election board for totalization of results without fear of unauthorized tampering with the results. In accordance with usual practice it is an important object of the invention to provide a voting machine capable of satisfying the above requirements while preserving the capability of limiting the number of ballots cast for a particular office by a single voter.
Another important object of the voting machine of the invention is that means must be provided whereby it can be confirmed that the vote counters read zero at the beginning of a day's voting while not exposing the counters to the voters during the election process.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a voting machine which provides a non-resettable counter which counts the number of times the voting machine case is opened whereby security can be assured.
Another object of the invention is to provide means whereby an election official can maintain control over a machine, e.g., resetting it to be available for voting after each individual voter, without requiring him to be in close juxtaposition with the voter, so that privacy of the vote is assured.